by Soto, S. M.
A Cruel Love
Cavalieri Della Morte
S. M. Soto
A Cruel Love © 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 S.M. Soto
Cover and book design by Jay Aheer
Photographer: Wander Aguiar
Model: Jacob Cooley
ISBN: 9781093985344
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
The Cavalieri Della Morte
The Authors
Also by S. M. Soto
Playlist
Preface
Voyeur
The Beginning
Run Rabbit, Run Rabbit, Run, Run, Run
Unfortunate Circumstances
The Hostage Bargain
Knocking on the Reaper’s Door
Escape
Here comes the Boom
Bring the Pleasure, Baby, I’ll Bring the Pain
Murder in Room A2
The Actions of a Monster
Closer
Going in for the Kill
All in a Devil’s Work
The Beginning of the End
Veracity
Tabella Della Morte
Death Sentence
The Bowels of Hell
Total Eclipse of the Heart
A Living, Breathing, Dead Man
Checkmate
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
The Cavalieri Della Morte Series
A Sneak Peek at Darkest Deeds
Ava
Afterword
Let’s keep in touch!
About the Author
Warning: This book contains very disturbing situations, strong language, and graphic violence. May contain triggers for abuse victims.
Also by S. M. Soto
THE CHAOS SERIES
Deception and Chaos
Blood and Chaos
Love and Chaos
THE SAN DIEGAN SERIES
The Darkest Hour
Scoring the Quarterback
Damaged Heart
STANDALONE TITLES
Ache
A Cruel Love
COMING SOON
Kiss Me with Lies
Bury Me with Lies
Jake Wilder
Playlist
Somebody’s Watching Me – Hidden Citizens
Bad Buy – Billie Ellish
Killer – Nipsey Hussle ft. Drake
Middle Child – J. Cole
Going Bad – Meek Mill ft. Drake
Sucker For Pain – Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Imagine Dragons, Logic, Ty Dolla $ign ft. X Ambassadors
Racks In The Middle – Nispey Hussle ft. Roddy Ricch & Hit Boy
I Know – Big Sean ft. Jhene Aiko
The Way – Kehlani ft. Chance The Rapper
Man or a Monster – Sam Tinnesz ft. Zayde Wolf
Drunk Texting – Jhene Aiko ft. Chris Brown
Not Afraid Anymore – Halsey
Hurricane – Fleurie
Cruel – Snakeships ft. ZAYN
Click here for the full Playlist
Preface
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
Shakespeare
To all my fierce ones who are finding their voice.
Voyeur
With my cigarette dangling from my lips, I watch her from my perch along the brick wall, hidden in the shadows. Her long blonde hair is distracting. The strands are a blend of caramel and honey—shit looks like it’s been spun from gold. Her body, which she tries to hide behind in those unflattering clothes, is still delectable, regardless of her attempts. She’s a tiny little thing, but despite being so small, she has curves in all the right places. Petite with soft features and a killer smile. She’s the epitome of sweet and angelic—everything I’m not.
She’s nowhere near my type, but my cock that’s straining against the seam of my jeans? Yeah, apparently, he likes her a whole hell of a lot more than he’s supposed to.
She fiddles with instruments behind the counter, which displays a wide range of sugary treats that are no doubt the cause of the fucking obesity here in the US. And here she is, this sweet little thing, damning everyone who walks through those doors with her fucking confectionary goods. That’s what her place is called after all—Blossom’s Confectionary Sweets.
For the last few days, this has been a nightly occurrence. I park across the street from her shop, slip back into the shadows of the quiet main street, and watch her through the windows as she begins her baking process for the next workday. She’s a creature of routine. Even in the small amount of time I’ve been watching, I know that. My sweet little baker hasn’t deviated from her routine, not once since I’ve been watching.
She closes up shop every day at 8:00 p.m. on the dot, and then she makes a point to check her displays, pulling out the old goods and placing them neatly into a pink box set out on the counter. After cleaning up from top to bottom, she then takes the box out to her car where she later drives it to the homeless shelter.
Believe that?
This chick doesn’t even throw them away. She’s too damn giving. Too fucking sweet. So goddamn thoughtful.
Which is why I can’t wrap my head around the fact that there’s a bounty on the beautiful girl’s head. And the bigger problem? I’m the fucking hitman sent to finish the job.
I guess I should probably start from the beginning so you can understand. So you can see what’s led me here and why, after everything, I still plan on killing her.
The Beginning
Tears stream down Mommy’s face as she drags me into the hidden compartment inside the closet. We can see everything happening inside the room from the peephole, but the men, the bad men, they can’t see us. My papa was the one who made the hidden compartment. Said if anything bad ever happened and we couldn’t get away in time, we needed to run straight to his office that’s usually off-limits, climb deep into the closet, and slip into the compartment. No one would ever know, he’d say. I just never understood why we would need it. Until now.
It’s not until I have Momma sobbing quietly beside me, her nails digging into the skin of my arm, that I see why my father was so very protective of us after my brother Lamar’s death. The men, the bad men, come in with guns—the kind that are from the movies Momma doesn’t let me watch—and knives. Big knives that look much too big and heavy to be carried around. They charge straight for my big brother Drian, holding him down and stabbing him over and over. His pained grunts fill the room along with Papa’s angry screams. He’s begging them to stop. I’ve never heard him beg before, and now…now, it hurts to hear it. Something is happening in my chest. There’s a shooting pain that makes it hard to breathe as I watch.
The men don’t stop. Drian makes gurgling and choking noises on the floor, and even with the silent tears streaming down my face, I understand the gravity of this moment—he’s dying. They’re killing him, right here, in front of us, and they don’t even know it. The men who were holding down Drian move on to Papa, and a fierce need to protect makes me take a step forward and grasp onto the handle inside the hidden compartment. Momma’s sharp grip stops me in my tracks. I whirl on her, my chest caving with pain as I stare up at her with questions in my eyes.
<
br /> Doesn’t she want me to save them? To save us?
She looks broken, and as she stares down at me with wetness coating her cheeks, she slowly shakes her head, telling me no.
My heart shatters in my chest when I turn back around and watch the rest of the scene unfold. The men grab my papa, holding him up by his hair and pinning his arms out at his sides so he can’t fight back. Another man comes up behind him and slices the blade along his neck. Blood.
So much blood.
The sound of pain.
Gurgling.
Then nothing.
Papa’s lifeless eyes are trained on our position in the closet, but I know he can’t see us. He can’t see anyone. His eyes are glazed over, but he’s not at peace. The realization has a silent sob cracking through my chest. Momma hurriedly buries me into her arms, muffling my sobs, pulling my face away from the horrors of their death, but it’s too late. I’ve already seen the worst part.
They’re dead.
I jolt awake with a start. I fling upright in bed, my hand curling around the handle of my pistol as I aim it around the room, scanning for any threats. There’s nothing. Just my pounding fucking heart and the lively sounds of the city surrounding my building.
Perspiration clings to my skin, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand and slide out of bed. I glance toward the digital clock on the nightstand and grit my teeth together when I look at the time. Four fucking a.m.
Last time I closed my eyes, it was half past two thirty, which means I haven’t slept worth shit. Sleep requires the ability to relax and let go, and that’s never been something that has come easily. I pad toward the window that overlooks the city of New York. Even now, at the ass crack of dawn, the city is still vibrant and bustling with energy. Bright lights, a few taxis, random street walkers, you fucking name it. I snatch a packet of cigs off the end table and light one, fixing my gaze on the lights, not really seeing much. All I’m seeing is my past and what’s led me here, with the Cavalieri Della Morte.
Flicking open the gold lighter that belonged to my father, I light up and inhale. The nicotine stings and soothes as it fills my lungs, spreading through my chest cavity. I finger the gold chain around my neck, the chain that belonged to my father, the same one each of my brothers wore. It’s a pendant with St. Christopher—for protection.
Even though they’re gone, this one piece of jewelry, this life, brings me closer to them than I’ve ever felt before. Watching a gruesome murder when you’re a kid changes you. It leaves a dark taint, skewing an adolescent mind—I know it did me. My mother tried to shield me from that life after the death of our family, a life filled with crime and uncertainty, but what she failed to realize was that I was already neck-deep in the underworld. Watching my family murdered as a child cemented my place within the criminal underbelly. This life? It was in my fucking blood; it’s my destiny.
My father and my brothers were part of the Italian mob, the Chicago syndicate. My brother Lamar’s death came as a surprise to the entire outfit. Members of the Irish mob didn’t take kindly to the uprising of our syndicate, and my brother paid the price with his life. My father and oldest brother spent months planning a counterattack, planning their vengeance for his death, but the night it was supposed to happen? Nothing went as planned. Our entire home, that was always like a sanctuary, turned into a bloody massacre, one where I had to watch my father and my brother brutally murdered.
After those men—men whose faces I’ve memorized over the years—left the room, my mom made us wait it out a full day before she deemed it safe to slip out. A full day of being frightened and cramped, inside of a small space with no food or a place to relieve ourselves.
From beneath the floorboards in my parents’ bedroom, she lifted a duffel bag full of cash and we left Chicago, almost like nothing ever happened. She made me promise I’d never step foot back in that city again. And I’ve kept that promise. Even now.
She may have tried to shield me from the life of the underworld, but it found me. Even when we were states away, deep in New Orleans, Louisiana, it found me. Or I should say he found me—the faceless man. Arthur. Creator of the infamous Tabella Della Morte. The Table of Death. A soulless brotherhood bound by blood. He’s practically a fucking legend in the underworld. And the men invited to work and serve for him at the table? They’re legends too. We’re the Cavalieri Della Morte. We’re a brethren. A soulless brotherhood. Our fates sealed in blood.
I wasn’t even eighteen when he found me in New Orleans. I was just a little runt, looking for trouble. I never lost sight of my vengeance. Even states away, thousands of miles away, I kept an eye on the men who tore my family apart; I spent days and nights plotting, making plans that would likely result in my death, but I didn’t care. That’s how reckless I was. That’s how blinded by revenge I was.
The Irish mob had men everywhere, and it just so happened, some of their men were in New Orleans too. In my adolescent mind, killing all of them was justice enough. It didn’t matter that the men from the New Orleans syndicate weren’t part of what happened to my family in Chicago, but none of that mattered to me. I just wanted revenge, and if killing any part of the Irish mob was part of it, then I’d pull the trigger without hesitation.
I’ve had a lot of guns aimed at me over the years. A man’s intent is always right there, glistening in his eyes, to be read like the pages of a book. Some of them just wanna scare you enough that you back off; some of them are so desperate in trying to hide their own fear that they forget to make you believe they mean it. Whatever Arthur saw in me, in the way I looked down the barrel of a gun, was life changing.
Arthur is as ruthless as they come. Men and women fear him, his power and cruelty. He guided me into this world of violence though, so it’s not in me to be intimidated by him. I do have the strangest need to feel his support, his praise even. Maybe it’s the fact that he reminds me of my father. A killer in the mist. One who is still alive and not buried six feet under with my brothers and the rest of my family. You can’t help but respect Arthur. He’s cruel and savage, but he’s a man of his word. Through and through.
Arthur must’ve sensed my lust for vengeance because he’s been a mentor to me, teaching me all the ways to take lives. He welcomed me into his circle, his brotherhood, with open arms, and I’ve never looked back. Even eleven years later.
How could I?
He helped me go from an angry, brokenhearted street rat to a knight at the Table of Death who has power—someone who takes what he wants, even if it means leaving a trail of blood and dead bodies in order to get it. I’ve had to climb my way up to be on the same level as any of the knights, and now that I’m here? There’s no way I’m ever going back. I’m going to make those men pay for the deaths of my brothers and father.
I don’t just want to kill them and be done with it—if that was the case, I would’ve killed them all years ago and never looked back. I already made that mistake before, and it’s exactly how Arthur found me. Neck-deep in the blood of a man named Dean O’Leary, one of the bastards who murdered my family. In New Orleans, I was plucking off members of the Irish mob one by one. Dean didn’t take too kindly to the deaths of his men, so he paid me a visit in Nola. It was exactly what I wanted: to draw him out. I was so close to being caught—killed by the rest of his Irishmen. I was just a fucking kid who didn’t have a clue on how to take a life. How to exact that vengeance that was like a driving need for me. There was only one person who stood in the way of me and death, and that was Arthur. He was there, watching the entire scene unfold from the shadows. He wasn’t like the guardian angel you’re thinking of, but like the little devil on your shoulder.
He saw something in me. Something that made me of use to him—I’m sure that’s the only reason he’s kept me around this long. He’s shown me what a quick kill like Dean’s does for your bloodlust; it only feeds it. The difference that he taught me? You don’t just want to feed it, you want to quench it. And I planned on it.
I want to bring down their whole empire.
I want to watch their families suffer at my hands, just like my family did. And to do that, I needed to be smarter. No gung-ho, gun-shy bullshit. I’ve spent years prepping. Years following each of these men at a distance. I’m so close to the endgame—to ending them all—I can almost taste it. Sweet fucking victory.
Retribution.
Being associated with the most feared man in New Orleans? It comes with a price, and that price is a target on your head. And I plan on using that target to my advantage. I’m letting those Irish bastards think they have me. I feel their men, their eyes trained on me. But what they don’t realize? I’ve allowed all of it. I let them see what I want them to see. I let them analyze whatever routine I want them to think I have. Because tomorrow night, they’ll all be led into their rightful place. Their death beds.
On top of exacting my own vengeance, and as part of the Cavalieri Della Morte, I get rid of the problems for Arthur. Every local knows once the members of the Cavalieri are in the same city, it means trouble. People purposely stay off the streets, close up shop early, lock their doors, and say their prayers, hoping they’ll last until morning—to see another day. Most of them don’t.